141–150 of 200 posts
After some burnout after building a tech company, I saved up money and left my job, and decided to take 2 years just doing whatever I feel like doing each day, until I find something I really, truly love, that I can build a new career from. I tried some different things, and in the end I found my new calling. I think the key is to free up time so you can experiment with different things with no pressure to make money…
I'm not obsessed about "working for my passion" or anything like that. I have a good life outside of work, supported by my high paying programmer job. I did a lot of job-hopping the past few years looking for the right place to work, and I finally found it. I look for companies that respect work-life balance, don't want me to work too hard, and have excellent engineering culture that values high quality work and has…
Out of curiosity, how old are you if I may ask? I just entered 30, but I do share some of my regrets and life perspectives from this post. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recruiters cannot hear the word "No." The best way to get recruiters to stop responding is: Thank you for making me aware of this opportunity. Before I waste your time, I have a few quick questions that I'd like answered: Is this fully remote? Or on-site? And most importantly, what is the compensation range for this position? Pretty much shuts down the conversation completely. Ghosting. So much ghosting. I'd say an a…
I demanded a minimum compensation amount to a recruiter once at a FAANG company, something really outrageous even for FAANG. They ended up giving me non-answers saying that I still needed to interview and determine what my SWE level was going to be before they talk about compensation. I stopped the conversation right there. That was a massive waste of time.
"Don't be showing up on the Ferrari dealership forecourt with a Honda budget in your pocket."
Did the interview, got an offer, and that offer was 70% less than what I was currently making. Turned the offer down.
When asked "why?" I responded "because you lied to me about the compensation. I have no interest in working for anyone that would immediately lie to me."
I will not talk to any company, and haven't for the past 15+ years, that cannot give me a very firm number in the first ten minutes. And I shut down the conversation immediately if they won't.
The rest of the week I do the software development. I like it most of the time, sometimes I love it, and sometimes (thankfully less of the time and not recently) I hate it and can barely bring myself to call into stand up.
On the balance though, I am deeply grateful that I like my job. I don’t think finding paid employment that you consistently “love” is feasible for most people. Besides, jobs, people and organizations change over time, so loving being a Dev in 2007 doesn’t mean you’ll love it today.
If you are in work you on the balance like and it provides the ability to be fulfilled outside work I’d say count yourself lucky and don’t sweat not having found something you “love.” Perhaps eventually you’ll find that thing, perhaps not, but if you look back at your career and say you mostly enjoyed it then I’ll say you are be looking back at a successful career.
I'm not obsessed about "working for my passion" or anything like that. I have a good life outside of work, supported by my high paying programmer job. I did a lot of job-hopping the past few years looking for the right place to work, and I finally found it. I look for companies that respect work-life balance, don't want me to work too hard, and have excellent engineering culture that values high quality work and has…
I pursued video games as a professional programmer and all it did was kill my enjoyment of games in general. I couldn’t really get my creativity out either because you’re a cog in a 10-100+ person team and often you work on projects you probably wouldn’t play if you weren’t paid for it. I still dream about FIRE and working as a 1-3 person studio working on silly creative little games for the joy of it.
After some burnout after building a tech company, I saved up money and left my job, and decided to take 2 years just doing whatever I feel like doing each day, until I find something I really, truly love, that I can build a new career from. I tried some different things, and in the end I found my new calling. I think the key is to free up time so you can experiment with different things with no pressure to make money…
You going to tell us what exactly your calling is?